Of Sunflowers Lost
by Ophelia's Flood
Summary: For every man in her life, Lorelai has fallen in love with a flower. Alone in his apartment November thirtyfirst, surrounded by pressed flowers and memories, what will Luke discover?
1. The Darkest Day

Summary: For every man in her life, Lorelai has fallen in love with a flower. And whenever that man disappeared, that flower was banned from the Gilmore house, never to be seen again. After Max, she hated daisies; after Christopher, she could not bear to see red roses. When Luke is alone in his apartment one November thirty-first, surrounded by pressed flowers and memories, what will he discover?

Author's Note: I have learned that if I post the first chapter of a story before the entire thing is finished, then I lose interest and abandon it. Therefore, I have this entire story completed, and I wait only for reviews in order to post it. So read and review!

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Rain lashed the windows in wind-driven bursts, each frigid gust shattering a thousand crystal water droplets against the immovable pane of glass that looked out of the dark apartment into the gray gloom of the outside world. The streets of Stars Hollow were completely obscured by the weeping sky, by curtains of rain that shivered and rippled, distilling the image of the quiet town and breaking it up into a shower of mirages that fell and glittered like shards of shattered glass.

Luke Danes stood hunched before the battered window, hands hidden in his pockets, shoulders hunched, head bowed in the very image of melancholy. Half-lidded eyes glared out at the world with a gaze that might once have been hateful, but now carried only a beaten-down weary resignation, and the faintest gleam of regret. With a heavy sigh, Luke reached up and removed the blue baseball cap that perched backwards on his head, twisting it around his calloused fingers, hiding the brown skin underneath the deep turquoise, fancying to himself that it looked as though he had plunged his fingers into a fragment of the sky.

Shaking his head to clear it of such useless and gloomily poetic thoughts, he turned his back to the shuddering curtains of rain, forgetting the town that slept quietly amid the storm and narrowing his world until it contained only the darkness before him, the mahogany shades of walls that had been in shadow too long and soaked up the lack of light, so that even if the sun were to suddenly burst forth from between the clouds, the room would remain as dark as it had ever been.

With a grunt that might have been a muttered curse, Luke crossed the room in three powerful strides, standing and glaring at the glazed and shimmering glass panel on the door, where the words he saw every day were reflected back at him in reverse. A grim smile touched his lips as the thought occurred to him; that today was a reversal, a mirror image, a twisting and turning inside-out of his comfortable universe. It was a day when the sun was darker and harsher than the night could ever be; a day when all that should have been right made him ill, a day when the deep love and respect he had always felt for his father turned into a kind of hatred, a sharp pain of desertion that had not been dulled by time.

In a sudden flare of unreasoning anger, he turned his back on the door, his eyes falling upon the calendar pinned to the opposite wall; below a picturesque whirlwind of golden red and lustrous brown that twisted itself into the word _November_, there lay a slow progression of numbered days, each one with a methodical slash slicing through it; each one except for the very last, where a red glare leaped out at him where he had thrown the marker at the small black 30 that burned into him across the sable room.

_Fine. _His lip curling into a disgusted sneer, he stalked over to the calendar and slammed his fist against the insolent mosaic of fall. _Fine. I don't need him. I don't need any of them. I never have, and I never will._ The calendar folded under this furious assault, fluttering down to the floor to lay there like a slaughtered bird, a reminder of all that he dared not contemplate, of all that he hated to remember. With a half-voiced snarl of uncontrolled rage, Luke smashed his foot into the wall, dealing it a vicious blow; when it refused to bend, he slammed his fists into the wood, again and again, until he felt sure his knuckles were bruised and bleeding, and there were splintering cracks in the wood where his hammering had broken through.

Teeth clenched, shoulders stiff with an insane rage, at the world, at himself, at the calendar that dared to remind him of his hidden pain and the unbreakable procession of Time that had brought the fateful day around once again, he smashed one scratched and bloodied fist into the wall again; haunted with the vague notion that if he could break the inflexible wood, punch through the unreasoning barrier, than maybe he could also break through the claustrophobic continuation of day and night and night and day, break through the laws of the universe and return to a day when it was not raining, a day when the very air around him was not stained with shadows, a day when every breath did not cause a searing pain in his heart, a day that was not the thirtieth of the November; a day that was not dark.

Withdrawing his fist to continue his ruthless punishment of his apartment wall, Luke was distracted by a soft _thump_, the sigh of ruffled pages, the undetectable vibration of something hitting the dust-covered floor. Glancing up, he noticed the shelf that had been nailed by his own hands to the wall just above him, and realized that his constant pounding must have knocked some disused knickknack from its perch to lie in tarnished glory on the floor. Face twisting into a scowl, he took the two steps away from the wall with a childish stamping of his feet, an irrational rage taking hold of him that demanded he show his spiteful anger to the world. Peering intently through the gloom cast by the drawn curtains, he barely managed to make out a dim glimmer of golden words, the vague shape of a book lying at his feet; and then, once he had distinguished it from the surrounding dust, he had to fight hard not to simply kick the stupid thing against the wall for daring to disturb him.

Finally, after a few moments of silent struggle, he bent down and picked up the errant book, cradling it surprisingly gently in his large hands, hands that were more accustomed to clenching the hilt of a hammer than to riffling through the delicate pages that now lay open before him, strangely inviting in their crisp white smoothness. Wonderingly, almost breathlessly, he allowed his fingers to roam across the gleaming pages, tracing the words as though he were blind, as though he had been dazzled at the sight of a thing so beautiful and so serene intruding on his day of violent grief.

His unreasoning rage soothed by this unexpected sight, the heat that flushed his skin cooled by the frigid pages, Luke allowed his scowl to fade, to be replaced by an almost childlike fascination, a need to touch and look and taste the world around him, a need to rediscover what he had lost in the storms and rages that battered his weary mind for unbroken hours. He turned the book over in his hands, absorbing it, admiring it; closing the pages, he glanced at the front cover, his expression of wonderment fading as he caught sight of the golden words that gleamed up at him from the darkness.

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A/N: The next four chapters or so deal with each of Lorelai's boyfriends. These are not in chronological order; instead, they are in roughly decreasing order of seriousness and required wallowing-time. There are two stories going on here; one in normal type, which is the present, and several scenes in _italics_. These are fictional flashbacks that I made up. There will be a note at the beginning of each chapter telling when the flashbacks are supposed to have taken place.


	2. Max

The flashbacks in this chapter take place in Season One. The first one is directly after Max lends Lorelai his copy of Swann's Way, the second is after the engagement is broken, when Lorelai returns from the Harvard trip. Enjoy!

You gave me a wagonful of flowers, and I used it to carry the memories we had made together through the rest of my life. – Me.

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"_I can't believe it."_

"_Neither can I!"_

"_He _gave_ it to you?"_

"_He gave it to me! To keep! Not to rent or loan, like a library, which I guess is good because it would be really weird to have a boyfriend who's like a library, you'd have to pay a fine whenever you were late to the restaurant and I ain't made of money over here, I can't afford to pay fifty cents for every five minutes I get stuck in traffic –"_

_Luke paused in his productive bustling behind the counter at the far end of the Diner, listening to the high-pitched tones of squealing and giggling that carried through the noisy restaurant, piercing his ear like a needle. He pretended to scowl at the slightly panicked Kirk, who sat rambling aimlessly at the counter; tuning out the other man's nervous mutterings, he focused instead on the breathless tirade coming from the window table, in a vain effort to discern the words that tripped over each other and became tangled in themselves like the frantic rushing of a waterfall. There was only one way he knew to stem that particular brand of hysteria; leaving Kirk abandoned at the counter, he set out across the teeming restaurant, armed with a coffeepot and an iron will._

" – _and then there'd be the whole alphabetizing thing. I mean, what is the point of alphabetizing anything? It just gets you all confused and turned around because Az is at the whole other end of the spectrum from Za and –"_

_Edging up behind the small table, holding the coffee high above his head to prevent losing even a single precious drop, he judged himself close enough to speak the magic word; "Coffee?"_

_Immediately the rambling ceased, and Lorelai tilted her head back to look up at the man standing behind her, not even bothering to turn around in her seat. "Wow, you look tall," she said brightly. "Especially from this angle. Hey! Upside down, it actually looks like you're smiling!"_

"_Coffee, please," Rory sighed, holding out an empty cup. "She's been like this all morning and I don't think I can stand another minute. Thank you for getting her off the library thing, at least. We were about to embark on the evils of alphabetization."_

"_Anytime." Eyeing the slightly manic grin with which Lorelai still beamed up at him from her awkward position, he edged around the table under the pretense of filling Rory's cup. "How many gallons has she had already this morning?"_

"_Of coffee? None." Noticing Luke's incredulous look, she shrugged. "I swear. There was none in our house, and we only got here ten minutes ago. I guess all that caffeine she's been storing away over the years is finally being released into her bloodstream."_

"_Tell me about it. The pointless rants don't usually start until at least ten a.m. So, what happened? Did she fall out of bed this morning and hit her head on something solid?"_

"_Nooooo," Lorelai cackled mischievously, lifting her purse from the floor beside her and clutching it to her chest, "Sooo, Luke! How much do I owe you?"_

_Luke blinked, lifting Lorelai's empty cup. "You don't owe me anything yet. You haven't ordered. I haven't even given you coffee."_

_"Hmm." Lorelai paused to consider this, while Rory watched with raised eyebrows. "Well, if I order pancakes and eggs with my coffee, how much will I have to pay you then?"_

_"Why the sudden interest in paying me?" Luke grumbled, edging around Lorelai's chair to get a clear view of the table behind her, which needed to be cleared. "Most days you just grab your coffee, run away and hope I forget to send you the check. You haven't paid me in months. So did you win the lottery or something?"_

_"He's got you there," Rory interjected, trying and failing to hide the grin spreading across her face. "We never pay Luke. So why the sudden insistence on being financially correct? Hm?"_

_Faced with this two-pronged attack, Lorelai mumbled something inaudible and pouted, playing with the strap of her bag in a decidedly gloomy way, her shoulders slumped in a pose of weary resignation. Luke took in this picture of abject misery, glancing across the table at Rory with a questioning look._

"_She wants to open her purse," Rory clarified, as though that should have made everything clear._

_"I see." Luke paused to mull this over, trying and failing to unravel the many ramifications of this statement. "Is there any particular reason behind that, or is it just one of her wacky moods?"_

_"Aha!" Lorelai shrieked triumphantly, startling both Luke and Rory, "I thought you'd never ask!" Tearing the clasp open, she dug through her purse for a ridiculously long time, with the attitude of concealing some great secret. Finally she found what she was looking for, and pulled it out with a flourish, waving it before Luke's astonished face._

"_A book?"_

"_Yes! A_ pretty_ book!"_

"_He gave you a_ book_?"_

"_But this is not just any book, my friend! No, this is Swann's Way by Marcell Proust! Marcell Proust! Isn't that the silliest name you've ever heard? Now I can tell people that I've read Marcell Proust, and they'll say 'Wow, what a silly name, he must be a great writer'!"_

_Luke blinked, reaching out to take the spasming book in his large hands. Handling it gently, cautiously, as though it were made of nothing stronger than glass, he turned it over, examining both covers with a roving eye. "Does he know that you don't have the attention span to read anything longer than People magazine?" he asked gruffly. Placing the book reverently back onto the table, he shoved his hands into his pockets, fixing a scowl on his face to try and hide the fact that the fat volume had sudden taken on immense meaning in a moment's flash of realization. "He must have mistaken you for Rory. After all, he sees her all the time. I'm sure he's easily confused."_

"_Why, because I'm pretty enough to be sixteen?" Lorelai asked evilly, tilting her head at a bizarre angle to watch his expression slowly change from contempt for the book into the uniquely patient look of irritation he reserved only for her._

_"You can't kill her mood today," Rory commented, inhaling the fumes from her coffee with a look of beaten resignation on her face. "Trust me. I've tried. I even went through Lane's reject pile and found a reggae CD, and I played it in my room. No luck."_

_"Really?" Luke whistled, impressed. "You brought out the big guns, huh? Wow." Pouring the last of the coffee into Lorelai's cup, he grumbled under his breath, "I guess you really like this guy." _

_Lorelai didn't answer, only closed her eyes and began humming under her breath. Rory jerked bolt upright, her expression changing to a mask of utter terror. "She's gonna start singing," she moaned, taking a large, fortifying gulp of coffee. "Run, Luke, run!"_

_Luke obeyed, trudging back across the Diner, the empty coffeepot in one hand, allowing a slow smile to emerge on his face as the high-pitched strains of song drifted after him._

"_I feel pretty…… oh so pretty…… I feel pretty and witty and --"_

"_Mom!"_

_Grinning broadly now, Luke retreated behind the counter, leaning closer to the unnaturally pale man now sitting across from him, fidgeting restlessly. Pulling out his notepad and pencil with an uncharacteristic flourish, he said genially, without a hint of annoyance in his voice, "So, what can I get you, Kirk?"_

_Luke Danes was an honest man. He had never lied, cheated or stolen in living memory; in his opinion, there was no use hiding anything, as he had nothing worth hiding. There was only one secret that he had never spoken, that he clutched close to his heart, silent and warm; but that secret was never touched upon, never mentioned, so he had never needed to say anything untrue in its defense._

_That afternoon, he lied to a friend for the very first time. _

_Yelling back to Caesar that he had a delivery, he slipped out of the Diner and trudged down the street; once out of sight of the restaurant windows, however, he doubled back, taking a side lane down between a row of houses, glanced nervously around, ducked into the bookstore, and returned ten minutes later with a lumpy package burning a hole in his coat pocket._

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_Swann's Way_.

Luke mouthed the words, softly, silently, the golden letters burning into his vision, imprinting themselves on his mind, and coming unbidden to his lips as he cradled the black book in his rough hands. Blowing several years' worth of dust off the cover, he ran his fingers along the binding, pressing gently, locating the spots where the glue had come loose, or pages might be falling out; all traces of anger, all smoldering embers of bitterness were absorbed in the delicate task, the blinding force of unshed tears transmuted into a careful pressure as he felt the corners, checking for dog-ears and tears among the gold-leafed pages. The book had never been read, and it had never been touched by any hands but his own; yet he felt it was immensely important that the book be in good condition, be unblemished, be whole. That book was a tether; a chain that held him bound to the real world, the world of moon and stars and sunlight, that kept him from drifting helplessly into the dark mire of his own mind.

A misty tendril of thought drifted to the forefront of Luke's consciousness as he caressed the book with the fondness of memory; that the thing contained within these pages, beneath the leather and gold, was not a story; it was not a moral, a philosophy, the life of some imaginary hero. There was a man between those covers; a man that he had never met, a man whose face faded into the obscurity of forgetfulness, who had vanished completely out of Luke's world as he had vanished out of Lorelai's, leaving behind only a name; Max.

"Max." He said it softly, but with a throb of passion in his low voice, with an unconscious clenching of his hands around the wafer-thin pages. "Max." The name was a specter, a shade, an invisible menace; it was an aura that seemed to pervade the very air around him, a figure painted with words, descriptions, celebrations that he had overheard lurking at the fringes of Lorelai's life. It was a sullen flare of anger, quickly suppressed by an illusion of joy that knew no bounds; a strained smile, a hand clenched into a fist unknowingly amid a flow of honeyed congratulations, a desperate, shuddering attempt to hold his small world together as it seemed to be falling apart.

Luke had never met the man; or if he had, he could not remember the meeting. All that remained was a sensation of grit teeth, of the muscles in his face forced into an unwilling grin, a smothered hatred for the man that had become a contemptuous reverence for the book. Max was the breath that had driven him out of the Diner on a long-ago afternoon, a whisper that had stirred him from his complacency into a sense of overwhelming fear, had taunted him into a bookstore in search of a volume that he bought because he wanted the same ties to Lorelai as Max might have. Max was a distorted presence, twisted and bloated like the image of something frozen in glass, as it appears to someone on the outside, yearningly looking in.

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_The door of the Diner swung open with a bright, gleaming clangor of bells, a joyous clash that Luke completely ignored, engrossed as he was in the illegible scrawlings that covered his notepad, and the pencil eraser that he champed between his teeth. His face set into an expression of intense concentration, he allowed his eyes to gloss over the actual words, his gaze turned inwards, tearing, digging, searching……_

"_Luke!"_

_He jumped, startled, the pencil dropping from his hand and skittering away across the floor, the notepad flopping back against the counter as he relaxed his grip. Hands flying instinctively to his pockets, he glanced up, barely perceiving the familiarly beautiful face, the startlingly clear ice-blue eyes, framed by dangling black curls, looking at him from across the counter. _

"_Hey," he said absently, reeling from being so sharply recalled to reality. "Haven't seen you in a couple days. Where've –" he glanced over at Lorelai again, noticing for the first time the miserable cast to her mouth, the desperate frenzy in her eyes, the tear tracks that stained her cheeks, gleaming like mother-of-pearl in the harsh light. Immediately his tone changed, rising sharply from gruff acknowledgement to frantic fear. "Where've you been?" he asked sharply, leaning over the counter, notepad forgotten. "Lorelai, what's wrong?"_

_" I've been at Harvard. Didn't you hear?" she asked tremblingly, her tone rising into a falsetto of strained brightness, though Luke could hear the quiver of unshed tears beneath the false cheer in her voice. "I thought Miss Patty would've told you all about it by now."_

_"No, I haven't heard anything, you know I never listen when that woman talks." Reaching across the distance between them, he cautiously, daringly let his hand rest over hers where it lay on the counter. "Now, tell me what happened." His voice dropped, briefly, from sharp concern into a growl of anger that was almost feral. "Was it that Max guy?"_

_"No. Well – yes," she sniffed, moving her hand up to her eyes under the pretense of brushing her hair away, trying to hide the tear that was swept away by her thumb. Feeling the weight of Luke's gentle gaze upon her, she straightened her shoulders in a visible effort to pull herself together. "It wasn't Max's fault," she said thickly, her voice still quavering as though about to break, her expression only slightly more under control. "It was me, I wasn't committed, I wasn't ready, I wasn't –" She broke off, breathing deeply, turning her head away, giving no sign that she noticed Luke's hand tightening suddenly around hers. "I need your help," she continued, staring determinedly down at her feet, avoiding Luke's searching gaze._

_"Of course," he replied immediately, without a moment's hesitation, feeling a sharp, tearing pain blossom uncomfortably close to his heart as he watched her begin to rummage through her purse, determinedly not looking at him in a fruitless effort to hide her tears. Pulling out a small bundle, she dropped it on the counter, jerking her hand away as though burned by its touch._

_"I need you – I need you to get rid of that," she said softly, still refusing to meet his eyes. "Burn it, chop it up, throw it in a lake, I don't care. But I can't look at it anymore and – and I need to get it out of the house."_

_"All right," he said softly, "Whatever you need." He paused for a moment, scrutinizing her tear-streaked face, debating whether or not to risk breaking down the fragile barrier of self-restraint she held against the flood of tears, whether to appease the cold fear that clenched around his stomach as he watched her staring at the floor, her hand limp and unresisting in his grasp, biting her lip to keep from breaking down. _

"_You and Max –" he said tentatively, quietly, expecting no answer, only leaving the sentence open in case she showed him some other way to ease her anguish, asked him for some favor he could grant, gave him some way to dry her tears, to mend her heart with gentle hands in hope to soothe the ache that tightened his own chest._

_"Broken up," she said softly, in a half-sob that was barely above a whisper, so that he had to strain to hear it. "I didn't want to marry him – didn't – didn't want to try on my wedding dress – at all –"_

_She stood up suddenly, drawing in a sharp breath and turning her back on the counter, but not before Luke saw the gleam of tears breaking loose from her iron will, trickling down their familiar tracks. "Get rid of that," she said firmly, wiping her eyes with subtle, furtive movements. "I've got to get back to the Inn –"_

_"Of course," he murmured to the empty air, watching her walk stiffly through the door and disappear down the street, her shoulders slumped, head bowed, dejected in a way that he had never seen her before. _

She looks – defeated_, he thought vaguely, and for some reason the thought sparked a wave of burning rage, a surge of fire that invaded his hands, his face, twisting his mouth into a snarl, his fingers twitching with the desire to throttle the man who had beaten her down, who had stolen the light, the laughter, the spirit, from the most vivid and joyous woman he knew._

_Fighting down the flickering flames of unreasoning rage, he turned his attention to the long, thin paper-wrapped bundle that still lay in perfect innocence on the counter, heedless of the pain it had unknowingly caused. Glancing around at the nearly-empty Diner, his hands stole forward of their own accord, furtive fingers peeling back the wrapping, laying the torturous contents out before him._

This is what she wanted me to get rid of? _he wondered, carefully smoothing back the paper, lifting out a single yellow daisy, that rose in a gleaming rain of petals that drifted down like fragments of the sun._

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Biting his lip from the memory of that pain, feeling the familiar ache flare up in him with an edge dulled only slightly by time, Luke turned the book over again, slowly, absently, as though seeing some divine image beyond the leather-bound pages. Sliding his fingers slowly beneath the front cover, he lifted it, revealing the first sheaf of pages, slightly wrinkled with age. Between leather and paper, pressed flat and preserved in all of its heedless glory, lay that same daisy, petals missing where Lorelai's nervous fingers and Luke's reverent ones had plucked at its golden head. Slight discolorations marked the title page, where Luke had torn the daisy's leaves away, and its sap had seeped like blood from the jagged green tears; lifting the flower as though it was made of nothing but spun glass, Luke crossed over to the bed, setting it down on the coverlet to shine like a brilliant star through the unlit darkness of the apartment.

Leaning against the stolid bedframe, the book still held open in his hands, Luke stared down at the golden blaze of petals, perfectly arranged so that it seemed to have been twisted from his memories and given life, a plummeting comet trailing a ripple of hatred, of joy, of unadulterated longing through the gloom of his darkest day. The very flower itself seemed no more solid than a memory; out of place in the rain-washed darkness of the November day, it refused to succumb to the darkness, but gleamed and shimmered with a light of its own; and Luke smiled, noticing that the graceful curve of the stem brought to mind the swift, expressive movements of slender white fingers; that the golden light defying the gloom of darkness shone out of the petals as it so often did from the face that smiled eternally before Luke's eyes, daring to win free of the mediocrity, the dull repetition of the suffocating world around her.

With a titanic effort, he managed to tear both eyes and thoughts from the fluttering daisy; returning his gaze to the book that still rested between his palms, he slid his thumb underneath the pages, flipping through chapter upon chapter, not reading the words but admiring their grace as they flowed seamlessly by. Reaching the near-center of the book, he paused suddenly in the movement of pages; for lying under his close-peering eyes lay, not another roll of liquid ink unfurled in trailing phrases, but a blazing red rose, lying prone between the sheaves of paper with the crimson glory of an unbruised and unbroken heart.

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This is the only chapter I will post without reviews. I must have at least three reviews on this chapter before I post the next one, and that number may increase! Tell me what you think, please? Good? Bad? Ugly? 'Take some writing classes, you idiot'?


	3. Christopher

First I want to say thank you so much to all of my wonderful reviewers, who overwhelmed me with their generous responses. Seven reviews in one day! It's incredible.

To those of you who ask where this is going, I can't give away anything yet. This is going to be a fairly long story, and for now we're just looking back at the past heartbreaks of Lorelai's life. I have the ending written, but it's a little unsatisfactory so I might be changing it. Can't make any promises just yet.

There are two flashbacks in this chapter from Season Five. The first one is the night just after Luke and Lorelai broke up (the episode after the wedding renewal), and the second one is the night just after they got back together. The flashbacks themselves are in italics, which means that thoughts will be in normal type. Bon appetite!

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"I can cut them off. I can get them out of my life!"

"What about Christopher? He's Rory's dad! He'll always be in your life!"

"In her life!"

"Her life is your life!"

"No, not in this! I'm in, Luke. I'm all in."

I'm all in.

All in.

I love you, I love you, I love you, love you, love you, love you……

_The words echoed in Luke's head, a dull repeating rhythm, a pounding that followed the beat of his footsteps, the words twisting themselves to fit the monotonous repetition of his heart, the impassioned conversation fading into a staccato chant, a mantra, a sound of breath and blood and soul and very life itself._

Love you, love you, love you…….

_It was never-ending, never-ceasing, ever-resounding, ever-increasing……_

I'm all in. All in. I love you. Forever.

_It was his breath, it was his spirit, it was his tears, it was the last dangling and fraying thread to sanity and life and blazing light._

Forever. Forever. Forever. Forever.

Love you forever.

Lorelai…….

_He breathed._

_It was all he could do. All he could manage, all he could think of, because if he thought of anything else he would collapse, a senseless corpse, down on the cold pavement and never find the strength to rise again. If he thought of anything else he would break down into mindless weeping, and he would wind his insane way through the frigid night into morning and die as soon as the sun's rays touched him because its warmth reminded him too much of hers. His heart was gone and in its place was a mechanical contract, relax, wither, expand, in, out, in, out, a rhythmic coercion, forever, forever, forever……._

_Cold._

_It was cold. That much he knew, that much was safe to register, safe to realize, safe to know; because cold was an integral part of his being now, was a second skin, a layer of frost that had crept into his throat with his breath and seeped into his blood, had torn out mind and heart and lungs and soul until it was impossible to separate the living Luke from the layers of steel and snow that had encased him._

_Snow….._

_But no, that hurt too much; hurt to much too think of snow, because snow was falling eternally in the pristine grasp of memory, was falling in lazy spirals that fell on ice cut by ice-skate blades, that was tangled in her hair and stayed there like stars blazing in the velvety embrace of night. Snow was her, was her skin, was her laugh, drifting gently down to soothe the heaving ocean of his thoughts; and tonight snow was a rain of knives that sliced through his fragile thoughts and left a moaning, shuddering agony to blossom outwards from the wounds._

_The night stretched out before him, endless, boundless, rippling away into the chasm of eternity, and the stars above were cold and heartless as shards of ice, of crystal, prisms reflecting his emotions, his universe, and twisting them into a swaying vortex until he could no longer tell which way was the road to heaven and which the fall to hell and if it really even mattered anymore which one he chose. He was drunk, dizzy, reeling senselessly through space –_

_A bird shrieked in a nearby tree, exploding in a rustle of feathers into the sky as Luke passed beneath the wind-bent branches. The sudden noise startled him, shocked him, recalled him to himself; he froze, every muscle clenched with intolerable tension, nostrils flared, eyes wide, jaw hanging open as he stared stupidly at the ground, trying with every iota of strength he possessed to regain control over himself._

_He failed._

_He was shaking, trembling, hands clenching the inside of his pockets so hard that his nails were tearing apart the seams, his teeth clenched together so hard that he could almost hear them crack. The thought that he had been trying to avoid, the monumental realization, was battering his skull and branding itself into his brain and he had no choice but to accept it. He was out._

_No more._

_No more. No more Lorelai, no more caffeine addiction, no more senseless chatter far too early in the morning. No more jokes, no more quips, no more laughter, no more pointless and insane schemes that were crazy but beautiful just because they made no sense. No more messy laughter and inappropriate comments; no more battles over cell phones or coffee or flannel or the mysteries of the universe. No more sensuous and insanely comfortable kisses, no more whispered declarations of love that breathed through him like sunlight given life. No more ranting or raving, no more shared faked cynicism, no more hands around his dragging him forward against his will into the froth and color of town life._

_He started to shake._

_Never again would he open the kitchen after closing time because she needed coffee and his was the only door that was always open; never again would he comfort her after an explosive clash with her parents, never again try to decipher the high-pitched fast-paced Gilmore-speak that only she and Rory knew, never again be lulled to sleep by the murmurings of the TV he kept in his apartment because she could not bear to go to bed before ten. Never again would he put on one of his familiar shirts and have her perfume wreath him in an invisible embrace because she had worn that shirt the night before; never again would he have to climb onto her roof or disassemble her porch or break her back door lock in a frenzy of fear._

_The litany continued, a pounding of brass daggers that cut deeper into his living flesh with each new word. Memories flashed before him, a film reel spliced and speeding behind his eyes; desperate for something, anything to blot out that frantic repetition, he opened eyes that had been until then tightly shut, and for the first time looked around him, to find out where his feet had taken him this frigid winter night._

_There, looming into the sky before him, flickering with light, was the Gilmore house._

_Numbly, he noticed that the window was open; that the pane which he had just replaced was cracked, the frame was a little lopsided, as though someone had ripped it open, so desperate to breathe the snow-laden air that they had damaged the window in the process. Staring through the gap, into the very center of his shattered universe, he could just make out the mantelpiece with its burden of memories, and the upright chair under which he and Lorelai had once captured a runaway chick. The familiar shapes burned themselves into his vision; then they were gone, obscured by shadows that leapt and danced, flickering madly across the warm wall, transforming the night into a den of demons_

_Slowly, unthinkingly, Luke began walking again; his gaze never leaving the lumbering structure before him, only barely noticing the frost-gilded lawn and the gleaming stars that silhouetted it, he moved along the edge of the lawn, not daring to set foot on the grass. That was sacred marble, hallowed ground, where she had walked; and though he would not dream of defiling it with his footsteps, he stared desperately, hungrily, through her open windows, drinking in this one last glimpse of happiness before he was separated from her forever._

_His gaze shifted, across the door to the window that peered out at him from the other wall of the house; this, too, had been thrown open violently, and sat slightly crooked on its tracks, the curtains slightly torn. A blaze of golden light leaped out at him; blinking, he barely made out a shifting glow, a fire burning in a chimney that had been cold for as long as he could remember._

_He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, trying to get a better view; and he drew in a sudden sharp breath, as she moved into his line of vision, her hair pulled back into a knot at the back of her head, her dress and jacket made only more lovely by the creases and stains that they had suffered over the course of the night. She was biting her lip, staring into the fire with a gaze so thoughtful, so desperate, that it nearly broke his heart; she rocked back and forth on her heels, and he saw a flash of red, a bundle of roses bound with a crimson ribbon that she clutched tightly to her chest. _

_He watched, breathless, trying to memorize every inch of her, every wild curl of her hair, every detail of her face, every graceful movement of her hands –_

_He jerked back, startled, responding instinctively to the beloved silhouette, as she lunged forward suddenly, tearing the ribbon that bound the roses and dropping them in a blood-red clump to the floor. Kneeling down, she snatched one up, viciously ripped out its petals by the handful, and pitched them forward into the fire._

_Once the stem had been plucked clean, she tossed it into the hungry blaze, shaking now, every line of her body taut with suppressed rage; her hands darted down again, plucking up another flower and stripping it clean, with a viciousness that he had never seen in her before. She looked insane, with the firelight flickering over her face and her hair falling in wild disarray about her shoulders, with her expression twisted into a mask of grief and agony so deep that Luke could almost feel a knife plunged into his heart._

_The pain on her face echoed and reechoed in his mind, fanning the dull embers of hatred that always lay smoldering for anyone who dared to harm her. Flames stirred and leaped inside of his skull, melting away the frost of the winter night, surging and ebbing to a familiar rhythm, a word that he loathed, despised, that he longed to break with his bare hands because it made Lorelai upset. The name, the face, resounded inside of him so strongly that it took him a long time to realize that she was chanting the same word, an angry snarl, a hideous curse. She repeated it, over and over again, with each syllable tearing the petals and stems of roses, until it looked as though her hands were covered in blood; and her manic chant carried through the open window and over the glimmering lawn until it rang in his ears._

"_Christopher. Christopher. Christopher….."_

_She was in a frenzy now, ripping roses apart with a throbbing hatred, an agony that she tried to inflict on the flowers, a tearing and beheading, a frantic movement of hands and tears falling like unnatural rain in the winter night. Luke felt as though he was drowning, as though the wrath inside of him had squeezed the air out of his lungs, had turned to leaden sadness that constricted his throat, his mind, his heart. And the chant continued; continued until she was screaming his name, screaming the hated word to the sky, to the world, as though hoping to pitch that, too, into the roaring blaze before her. The roses disappeared, one by one, like showers of blood returned to the heat that had spawned them, like flickers of flame being swallowed by the sun from which they had come. It was a rain of hearts and memories; then they were gone, vanished, and her hands were moving uselessly in the air, were flickering back and forth and tearing at nothing because she needed to keep moving, keep moving, because if she stopped then the world would crash in upon her and throw her to the ground and she would never have the strength to get back up._

_Still she was screaming Christopher's name, still she was cursing him, hating him, calling every evil she could think of down upon his head, screeching that he had betrayed her, destroyed her, killed her. She rocked back and forth on her heels, frantic; then the fire began to fade, devoid of petals to devour, snarling like a caged beast among the ashes of roses, its light beginning to die. Luke could see the cold night enter the room; he could feel as the fire's heat diminished, as the cruel winter wind swept in through the open window, wrapped itself about her with the caress of a lover, with a hideous mockery of a warm embrace. He could feel rather than see her shiver as the chill breath of the world enveloped her; and he felt his throat constrict as her hateful scream died, as the hated name stopped its explosion and faded into silence, faded into another name, another word, one that she breathed as though it was a prayer, as though it was the last gleam of life that she was clinging to with all of her strength and could not bear to let go._

"_Luke," she breathed, falling to her knees at last, all of her rage spent, her gaze turned cold, her expression that of a small child lost in a world she has never known, who has been robbed of the only thing she ever loved. "Luke….."_

_As he stood there watching, breathless and stunned, she fell to her knees and cried._

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Luke bit his lip, the memory sweeping through him with a blaze so vivid, an image so real that he was left shaking, the pages of the book crumpled beneath his unconscious grip. Noticing that the words were running into each other where his tears had blurred the ink, he released the breath he did not know he had been holding, and gently worked his tense fingers free of the paper. He smoothed out the creases in the fragile page, desperately wanting the book to be perfect, to be beautiful, to be everything that the remembered about her so that he might never forget.

The rose glared up at him still, memories glimmering over its fragile petals so that it looked more like a leaping flame than a lifeless flower. He touched it gently, closing his mouth to keep his breath from ruffling its perfect petals; he wanted the rose, too, to be exactly as it had been, to remain frozen in time forever, to keep that essence of trembling and tears so it would never be buried beneath other memories of more important days, so that he would always be able to look back on the brief time he had spent without her and be eternally thankful that she loved him as much as he loved her.

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"_Luke."_

_There was no answer._

"_Luke."_

"_Hmmm?"_

_He lay in darkness, enveloped in a warm shower of night that seemed to pulse in a comforting rhythm with his own heartbeat, and the quick staccato of the heart that beat beside him. He was still, and silent, and warm; the cold night pressed on the windowpanes but could not invade on his dreams, could not fight past the shadows of the room to reach the white pillow on which he had laid his head._

"_Luke!"_

_The whisper came again, sharper this time, along with a soft tap on the shoulder that did nothing to disturb the utter peace that radiated from him. He only rolled over in bed, not even bothering to adopt the irritated mask he usually regarded her with; instead he allowed himself to break out into a radiant smile at the face that hovered close to his, beautifully pale in the darkness of the apartment, her dark hair falling like a waterfall cascading over her shoulders, on her pillow and onto his. He propped himself up on his elbow, reaching out to brush away a stray strand that fell across her forehead. "Yeah?"_

_"Do you have a radio?" Her hand reached up and grasped his, drawing it down to her mouth, and she kissed his palm before releasing it. Watching an expression of puzzlement waver across his face, she grinned a moment later as it disappeared. Luke had long ago given up being puzzled at the strange requests she made of him, intoxicated by the winter and the night._

_"Sure, there's a radio," he murmured, sinking back onto the bed, his eyes never leaving hers, never losing their gleam of quiet adoration. "'s over there, on the table. Why?"_

_"Just a feeling I have," she whispered, smiling. Leaving one last lingering kiss on his lips, she sat up and slid her feet to the floor, reaching immediately for the spare shirt he kept folded over the back of a chair for when she came. Luke leaned back on the pillow, watching her with a sense of utter contentment as she crept across the dark room, shivering, longing for the warmth of the bed. She rummaged around on the floor for a few minutes, eventually coming up with an old boom box, and flipped around until she found the station she wanted. Immediately music flooded the dark room; soft, crooning music, a voice that drifted into Luke's soul and stirred up the longing, the comfortable love he always felt when Lorelai was near._

"_And the moon's never seen me before………… but I'm reflecting light………….."_

_He felt a smile touch the corners of his mouth as he watched her, relaxing in a nearby chair, her expression rapt as the music breathed past her. "I love this song," she murmured, yawning sleepily. "It was the first song we danced to together. Do you remember?"_

_"I remember," he replied, cherishing the sound of her voice sliding through the night and the music to rest inside of his heart. They had been apart, not long ago; he knew that, and he knew that it had hurt, but he was tired and warm and he could no longer remember what it had been like to be without her in his life. "How did you know it was on?"_

_"I told you, it was just a feeling I had." She sank down in the chair, turning her head to gaze back at him, so that a pall of moonlight from the window fell on her face, illuminating her bright blue eyes, now dark with sleep, and making her hair glimmer and gleam like the night sky scattered with stars. As though drawn from her by the light, a half-smile emerged on her face, an unspoken declaration of love so strong that it made him shiver, even all the way across the room, from the cold that came when she was not next to him._

_"Lorelai?" he asked breathlessly, staring at her half-lit smile, at the vague silhouette outlined by the moon. The sight of her shrouded in darkness, the way she stayed as still as he had ever seen her, was waking another memory, a vague recollection from a time of sadness millions of eons away. "Lorelai, can I ask you something?"_

_"Of course," she responded at once, her voice low from contentment and exhaustion. "Anything. Absolutely anything."_

_He rolled over onto his back, breaking their shared gaze, staring up at the ceiling instead, watching the reawakened memory flicker through the air before him. "When we were – apart," he began slowly, "I was walking past your house, and I saw you – saw you standing in front of the fire. You were holding these roses – tearing them apart – and throwing them – into the ashes." he paused, his breath beginning to come fast as the sensation of the night began to come back to him. "You were screaming – you were screaming his name." He drew in a long breath, and let it out in a short, painful burst. "Christopher."_

_There was silence._

_Luke turned over onto his side again, suddenly hungry for the sight of her face, for her smile, for her warmth. She still sat beneath the glow of the moonlight, but her expression was melancholy now, thoughtful, and not unhurt. Aching that he had caused her pain, Luke pulled the blanket beside him down, the sheets almost glowing in the night air. "'m sorry I said anything," he murmured quickly. "Come back to bed." He wanted her warmth beside him again, wanted to prove to himself that the icy color of her skin was just a trick of the moonlight, but she did not move. Instead she gazed out at the sky, hands resting like sleeping swans on the arm of the chair, lips pursed in thought, apparently unaware of how much he wanted to hold those hands in his large rough ones, to press those lips to his. _

_"I met Christopher a very long time ago," she said finally, choosing every word with care, her voice completely calm, holding no pain but the sadness that comes from soul-searching thought. "We first were dating when both of us were very young – and when Christopher was a lot different then he is now." Her mouth curved up into a small, sad smile at the memories. "He was from a very wealthy family, like the Gilmores – and he was always a perfect gentleman." _

_Luke gave a start, shocked from his ecstatic contentment, with the thought that 'gentleman' was not how he would have described the other man – but Lorelai was already speaking. _

_"He was very sweet, back then," she recalled, her voice sounding incredibly far away, as though it was drifting back to him over the gulf of time. "He wooed me as any young man should – with candy and dinner dates and roses." Her smile faded somewhat, and Luke felt the ache in his heart increase, hungry to make her smile again. "He wasn't the first guy I'd dated. But he was my first real love, and for my entire life, whenever I've thought of him, I've thought of expensive chocolates, and expensive perfumes, and fields of blood-red roses." _

_She sat still and silent for what seemed like an eternity, then finally stood, leaving the radio to croon its soft song into the shadowed air. She pulled his shirt tight about her as she padded back across the room, slipping beneath the blankets next to him, and wrapping her arms tightly around him, clinging to him as though she would never let go. "That night," she breathed, "that night I hated him so much for what he'd done, that it seemed – right. I wanted to hurt him. I wanted to get him out of my life and make sure he never came back. I wanted to be with you forever and I wanted him to never look at me again; so I burned the memories, the dates, everything that reminded me of him." _

_"Mmm-hmmm," Luke murmured, returning her desperate embrace, feeling himself relax as her warmth seeped into him and made the night no longer cold. _

_"I love you," she whispered vehemently, burying her face in his shoulder, her voice suddenly cracking as unshed tears broke free of their restraints and trickled down her cheeks, glowing like lost diamonds in the moonlight. "I love you and I've always loved you and I'll burn all the roses in the world if I have to but I never want to see his face again." _

_"You won't have to," Luke said softly, tightening his arms around her. She felt safe; and the safety, the unconditional love that he held touched her to the core, and the contrast that she felt between that moment and the nights of her memories was so sudden that she broke down and cried, cried for joy and for warmth and for the rightness that she felt in his arms._

"_You won't have to," Luke repeated, and leaned down, silencing her sobs with a kiss._

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Luke sighed, raising one hand to his lips as the memory of that kiss, of that passionate devotion stung beneath his fingers. He could see the rain crashing and bursting against the window of his apartment out of the corner of his eye; he smiled slightly, remembering how the stars had gleamed on that winter night, and watching the dim light reflecting off of the shattering raindrops and how very much they looked like stars torn open and thrown from heaven to land on the ground so much warmer than their lonely perch in the skies.

Lowering his hand from the smile that touched the corners of his mouth, he felt a great peace swell through him, dispelling all the anger that he usually felt on this day. The memories shimmering through him had changed; they were no longer painful, only soft and comforting, the memory of Lorelai's warm embrace enfolding him against the frigid cold of the rain-soaked afternoon. He could feel the pressure of the town sleeping just outside the window; but for once the noise and color did not seem like an unnecessary distraction. For once, he knew the sensation of coming home.

Grinning softly for no reason at all except the caress of memory, Luke began turning the pages of the book again, savoring the feeling of the smooth paper like the touch of Lorelai's hands on his. The words were lost on him; instead he saw voices, faces, stars, all stirred into the ink and inscribed on the page into the shape of Luke's very life.

He had not gone very far at all when his hand suddenly paused in its ceaseless movement, falling limply to his side again, and his smile began to fade. The rose was gone, had been set gently onto the bed where it lay next to the daisy and glimmered like fire longing to return to the sun. But there, nestled between two pages, was yet another flower; a white lily, as bright and pure as the moon on a frigid winter's night, or a kiss stolen in a darkness that quivered warm with love.

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That's the end of another chapter! I'm upping the review requirement to five, but with the help of the wonderful people who reviewed my last chapter, it shouldn't be a problem. See you later!


	4. Jason

The flashback in this scene takes place in the middlish-end of Season Four, right after Lorelai breaks up with Jason but before Luke gets brave enough to make his move. (Those last three episodes of Season Four are some the best of the whole series!) All flashbacks, and in fact everything in this story sans characters and places, are completely fictional. So, without further ado, on with the show!

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_Luke stood on the unkempt lawn that encircled the Gilmore house, sparing not a glance for the flourishing grass and hidden nettles that pricked his ankles, digging thorns into his customary jeans, tearing out spools of blue thread that unraveled behind him as he moved. If he had cared to glance over his shoulder, he would have seen the meandering lines of navy that shivered in the slight wind, now hidden, now revealed by the rippling weeds; but the thought never entered his mind to tear his gaze away from the house that rose in sprawling glory before him. A faint smile drew up the corners of his mouth as his eyes found the memories that were imbedded into the grain of the wood; the banisters, doorknobs, windowsills, roof shingles he had fixed, and the footsteps where she had followed him, railing, ranting, that now seemed to glow as though capturing and distilling the light of the winter sun. _

_The constant swaying of the grass became violent as a particularly strong gust of frigid air swept by, pressing on Luke's back with a sudden force; jolted out of his recollections by the icy breath on the back of his neck, he moved sluggishly, an instinct to bolt overtaking him as he remembered the pulsing need that had drawn him here. He sighed, a violent burst of steam blossoming in the still sky; drawing in a deep breath, he closed his eyes, inhaling the scents of ice and autumn and coffee that drifted up to rest enticingly on his tongue._

_Fortified by the familiar sensation, he rearranged his expression into his customary scowl, feeling a flash of fear that some passerby had seen the look of childish wonder that had distorted his face for a moment. Pausing only to adjust his baseball cap so that it perched backwards on his head and pull his coat tighter about his broad shoulders, he stamped his way across the wild lawn, up the porch stairs that still creaked despite countless summer days spent repairing them, and over to the scratched and splintered door._

_Here he paused, all strength flowing out of him, nerves electrified with some unnamed emotion, wondering whether it would be wiser to knock, or to rummage through the cluttered porch for the turtle – or frog – or some amphibious animal, anyway – that he knew held a key in its mouth._

_Finally, however, his bravery reasserted itself; shifting the bag he carried to his left hand, he banged loudly on the door, teeth clenched – when only silence and the distant echo of his pounding breathed back to him from the cracks in the door, he tried the handle, unsurprised and slightly worried to find it unlocked._

_Stepping into the house was like plunging through the milky film of winter and straight into some future spring; immediately the air lost its bite, growing balmy and warm, and the curtains drawn across the windows filtered and scattered the sunlight so that it fell, not the gray gloom of approaching snows, but the flowering gleam of burgeoning summer. Summer lay eternally upon the Gilmore house; a thought that was regular and unsurprising, because in Luke's mind, the Gilmore girls themselves possessed all the overflowing warmth and radiance of the summer sun._

_Now, however, the usual bubbling laughter and incessant noise that drifted through the house was vanished. The golden sunlight fell into a dead hollow of abandoned heat; it was as though June had been captured between these walls, and had grown dank and stale, then crumbled into dust that filled in the cracks in the hardwood floor. There was no sound, no movement, no signs of life; twisting the neck of the bag he carried in nervous fingers, Luke cleared his throat, the noise echoing back to him from unexpected corners._

_"Lorelai?" he called into the silence, his voice sounding softer, gentler than his usual gruff growl. "Lorelai, are you here?"_

_His tentative inquiry was answered by a ringing crash above his head, a noise that came so sharply, so suddenly that he jumped away, afraid the ceiling was plummeting down. "Lorelai?" he called again, unnerved; but no sound answered, and the crash did not repeat itself. Breathing only barely, stepping cautiously across the maze of clutter and mess that had disfigured the living room, Luke crept over to the stairs, peering up into the well of shadows beyond. _

_"Lorelai? It's me, Luke," he shouted. Receiving no response, he began gingerly up the stairs, finding himself in the broad hallway that stretched away to a closed door at the other end, a closed door staring ominously down the empty expanse at him, the sound of soft, ragged sobs seeping between door and carpet and into the open air beyond._

_"Lorelai?" he asked again, softer this time, walking with infinite caution over to the door, pressing his ear against the hard wood, listening with bated breath to the ragged sobs that echoed within. Hesitantly, he reached out, groping for the doorknob without glancing down, pushing until the door swung forward into darkness._

_Stepping through into the bedroom, he was immediately struck by the impression of shadow; the room was unlit, the curtains drawn across the windows, the only sources of illumination the sliver of light on the mirror, and the pale face that seemed surrounded by its own light, staring mournfully at him from the bed. _

_Luke felt the breath he had been holding tear itself from him in a rush of air, as his eyes adjusted and he managed to make out the rest of Lorelai's form, draped in a bathrobe over a long nightgown, curled into a small, shaking huddle on top of a pile of blankets that had been bunched and wrinkled as though beaten by angry fists. Luke stood frozen, staring at this trembling ghost, the sight burning itself onto his brain with the hot brand of fear; then the silence was shattered as Lorelai sobbed, and Luke jerked back to himself, crossing the room in three long strides, settling down onto the bed and pulling off his gloves, stroking her back in slow, soothing motions. Lorelai twisted around and grasped his hand, pulling herself into an upright position, wrapping her arms around his neck and burying her face in his shoulder._

_Shocked by the sudden contact, Luke stiffened for a moment, then relaxed, wrapping her in his embrace, rocking slowly back and forth, holding her in silence until, finally, Lorelai's breathing slowed, her grip on his coat loosened, and she pulled away, wiping a final tear from her cheek._

_"Hey," Luke said softly, compassionately, daring to speak for the first time, "What happened? Rory came in this morning, and I asked where you were, and she said you were sick." Reaching across the bed, he brought forth the bag he had been carrying, now cold to the touch. "I thought I'd bring you some food and some coffee."_

_A bitter smile tugged at Lorelai's lips, and she shrugged, taking the bag with trembling hands. "Rory would say that," she sniffed, trying furtively to wipe away her tears, "She's so sweet, she wouldn't want me to be embarrassed." She peered into the bag, and her smile widened, loosing some of its sharpness and breaking into a grin of genuine gratitude. "Thanks for coming, Luke," she said softly. "You're a great guy – really – you brought me coffee – you brought me chocolate, for heaven's sake –"_

_"Hey, that was a gesture of self-defense," he said gruffly, allowing a small smile to break out on his own face in answer to hers. "Especially since the last time you were sick you nearly decapitated me with a blunt fork. I figured that if I brought chocolate, you could at least be persuaded to let me leave alive."_

_"Because flattery will get you nowhere – unless it is accompanied by something chock-full of sugar or caffeine," she replied wickedly, the dazzling smile Luke was so accustomed to returning to her face – though it faded a moment later, and Luke could have sworn he could see morbid thoughts intrude on her brief happiness._

_"So, if you're not sick, do you want to tell me what's really wrong?" he asked gently, drawing out the small box of chocolate and casting the rest of the bag aside. Lorelai moaned, falling backwards onto the bed, covering her eyes with her hands, as though longing to shut out the world._

_"It's Jason," she sighed. "Me and him are – I don't know – I guess we're broken up. I mean, I only started going out with him at all to aggravate my parents, but – I really, genuinely liked him for a while. I think I even loved him. I don't know." Propping herself up on her elbows, she gave Luke a small smile. "I'm fine, really. I guess – it was just the shock of it all – and him and my dad, and –" she paused for a moment, evidently at a loss for words. "Anyway, thanks for coming," she sighed, finding a welcome change of subject. "You didn't have to, I'm fine. I'm sorry I got you all concerned." Letting herself flop backwards onto the pillow, she moaned, "And I'm really sorry I missed my morning coffee."_

_Luke allowed himself a small chuckle before standing up, searching for his discarded gloves amid the tangle of blankets. "Well, I'll go make you some," he said amusedly. "After all, what else is a diner owner for?"_

_"My thoughts exactly," Lorelai sighed from her place among the heaped pillows. Luke turned to go downstairs, casting a single backward glance at her prone form; forcibly turning his thoughts to the mess that had surely developed back at the diner, he had made it almost to the door before she stopped him, breathing his name softly, drowsily; "Luke?"_

_"Yeah?" he turned immediately, glad for the distraction from the struggle within his own thoughts. Half-lidded blue eyes peered back at him, their usually clear depths crowded with sorrow and sleep._

_"Do me a favor?" she asked, covering a yawn with her hand. At his eager nod, she pointed over to the gleam of light that was the mirror across the room. "C'n you get the little round purple bottle? Either it's over there, or it's in the bathtub."_

_Not even bothering to ask what it might be doing in the bathtub, Luke walked gingerly over to the dresser, scanning the rows of bottles and dusty knickknacks until he found what he was looking for, picking it up by the neck and holding it up for Lorelai's approval._

_"That's it," she affirmed, fighting back another yawn. "C'd you throw it away? It was Jason's favorite, and it'll only break if I put it in the Jason box."_

_"Sure." Wondering what a Jason box might possibly be, Luke held up the perfume bottle again, examining the creased and twisting glass, the absurd and obviously expensive engravings around the neck, and the white label, that was cut into the shape of a white flower blooming on the front. _Exotic Lily_, it read; glancing furtively around to make sure that Lorelai was looking away, he slipped the delicate thing into his pocket before leaving the room, stomping down the stairs and through the living room, not even noticing that he banged his foot on a discarded lamp. _

_Entering the kitchen, his eyes fell immediately on the table, where a fresh bouquet of flowers sat resplendent in a porcelain vase; he managed to identify orchids and tulips before his knowledge of flowers ran out. But gleaming on the table before the riot of colors, a heap of glistening white lilies lay like slaughtered birds, their stems ripped viciously in half, and all their petals torn out._

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_Thump._

The dull crash of the wind-driven shutters smashing against the outside wall woke Luke from his reminiscing; a small smile fighting to emerge from his gloomy scowl, he set the book he held down gingerly on the bed beside daisy and lily and rose, then turned and strode across the room, to the chest of drawers that stood in a corner concealed by shadows. He opened one drawer after another, knocking on the bottom of each, searching for the right one; until finally his insistent tapping yielded a deep, echoing sound, the ring of a hollow hidden by thick planks of wood. Running his fingers along the smooth surface, he found a small groove, sliding his fingernails in and yanking back; the hidden compartment that he had built with his own hands was revealed, its precious contents laid out in the dim light.

Biting his lip in the face of the overwhelming weight of his memories, Luke stared hungrily at the contents of the drawer; at the cap his father had once worn, at the small, leather-bound book his mother had left him, that he had never opened; at the golden locket he had given Rachel the first time they had fallen in love, and that she had given back to him the first time she left; and, tucked away in the very back, half-concealed, lay a folded scrap of paper, held down by a small purple bottle that sported a drooping paper lily on its front.

Luke reached into the hidden hole, fumbling clumsily among the many keepsakes, though once he felt the cool, smooth glass of the perfume bottle against his fingers, he froze, fearful of breaking it. He lifted it gently from its resting place, blowing the dust away from the faded words; setting it carefully on top of the counter, he retrieved the folded paper, laying it out flat before him with nimble hands.

There, grinning back up at him, was Lorelai; a coffee cup held in her hand, a coat pulled around her shoulders, a genuine and gentle smile on her face, she sat haloed by firelight; his fingers gently tracing the gleam of golden blazes that was the reflected bonfire, he saw himself smiling back at her, felt himself basking again in the warmth of a blaze that burned brighter and warmer than the Firelight Festival could ever hope to achieve.

Turning his attention to the small bottle, he reached out and removed the crystal cap with infinite patience; once the delicate operation was complete, he held the container upside down, allowing its contents to slide out through the wide neck; the perfume had long ago evaporated, and in its place a dandelion, withered from lack of sun but poignant and beautiful nonetheless, trickled out to lay on the picture's glossy surface, shrouding Lorelai and Luke both in its tangled leaves.

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Just as a brief reminder because people say they are confused: There are two storylines taking place here. The one in normal print is Luke alone in his apartment; the one in _italics_ is a series of flashbacks that chronicle the past heartbreaks of Lorelai's life. This was a fun little all-consuming plot bunny for me to write, and I hope you're having fun reading it as well! Oh, and thanks to all my lovely reviewers once again!


	5. Alex

The flashback in this chapter takes place sometime in Season Two. I actually missed a big chunk out of that season, so I'm not entirely sure of the specifics concerning Lorelai's breakup with Alex; I must therefore beg you to ignore the glaring discrepancies between canon and this creation. I must also beg you to review!

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"_Ha! Take that! And that! And that!"_

_The piercing screech rang through the early summer afternoon, carried across the wide, still expanse of Star's Hollow on a meandering breeze, splitting the air with a vehemence of unshed tears that was shocking on such a peaceful, gently declining day. The dull thump of something hard and solid being slammed into the dirt rippled through the quiet evening, the only disturbance in the blue serenity of the unclouded sky, a sound so out of place that it jarred the minds of the townsfolk, stirring them from the lazy complacency of summer with the violence of acute and stabbing grief._

_Luke walked slowly through the tree-studded and emerald-shaded lanes that wound along the outskirts of the sleepy town, lulled by the heady scent of sap and honey that pervaded the fading summer day, his head bent in uncharacteristic observation, his eyes flickering to see every blade of grass, every step that passed away behind him. He had allowed his shoulders to slump, his weight leaning slightly to one side, pulled by the tool box that dangled, broad and clanking, from one hand; as the high shriek of pain reached his ears, he lifted his head, stiffening immediately as the voice struck a chord of recognition deep within his brain, a resonating tone that caused his heart to tremble. Almost instinctively, his step quickened; staring ahead now with focused determination, he cut off the road he had been walking on, weaving through bushes, ducking beneath outreaching branches, bursting through a final barrier of wild roses to find himself, panting and out of breath, standing at the edge of Gilmore lawn._

_The meandering wildness of uncut grass wound away before him, worn in some places by the constant tread of feet in a twisting path to the front door, in others untamed and nearly knee-high, merging effortlessly with the forest that stretched out along its undefined edges. The tufts of grass bent slowly, lazily, languishing under the gentle pressure of the breeze; raising one hand to shield his eyes from the amber glare of the sun, Luke was able to make out a bent figure, face obscured by black curls that dangled freely in the slight wind, hacking at the dull earth with a plastic hockey stick._

_The sheer absurdity of the scene struck him speechless; he stood immobile at the edge of the grassy stretch, watching in consternation as the bright red plastic blade rose, again and again, falling to chop at something hidden by the rampant yard. Lorelai apparently was not aware of how ridiculous she looked; straightening up, she brushed her unruly hair back, revealing an expression of determined concentration as she bit her lip, staring at something hidden by the grass. A sudden movement made her look up; catching sight of her visitor, she dropped the hockey stick she was clutching and grinned._

"_Luke!"_

_She was running towards him now, flying effortlessly through the tangling weeds; Luke braced himself for a hug, a crash, or some kind of impact, for it seemed to him that she would never be able to stop before she reached him._

_Yet stop she did, grinning wildly up at him; but before he could return her greeting, she had turned away, grabbing the tool box from his hand, dropping it to the ground and kneeling to open it._

_"Lorelai….?" he asked hesitantly, standing dumbstruck as she searched through his hammers and wrenches, opening packs of screws and nails, piling up the discarded tools beside her, searching intently for something._

_"Hey, Bert," she murmured under her breath, "You gonna help me out here, buddy?" Apparently disappointed with the answer, she looked up at Luke again, shielding her eyes with her hand. "Hey, Luke, do you have any clippie-things in here?"_

"_Do I have any what?" he asked, gaping at the bizarre question._

_"Clippie-things," she repeated. "You know, like scissors or those little plant-cutting things, or anything with sharp edges. Do you have any?"_

_"For the sake of humanity, I'm not giving you anything with sharp edges," he said gruffly, squatting down beside her to look at the mess she had made of his orderly toolbox. "I have some little clippers that you use on wires, but I don't know what….."_

_But she had already spotted the miniature shears, and before he could finish the sentence she snatched them up, struggling back through the clinging grasses to the spot where the abandoned hockey stick still glared crimson in the fading sun. Letting his question peter out into a sigh, Luke swept the whirlwind of tools back into the box, closed and latched the lid, then stood and trudged in Lorelai's wake, leaving Bert forlornly by himself at the edge of the wild yard._

_When he reached Lorelai, it was to find her kneeling on the ground, bent over almost double, her entire figure thrown into sharp relief, her head haloed by the sunlight that reflected from the dandelions that had sprung up in glowing clusters all around the lawn. Irreverent thoughts of angels crossed his mind – setting his expression into a scowl of skepticism, he shook them off, watching as Lorelai carefully slid the wire-cutters around the stem of a particularly tall flower, then viciously snapped its head off with a cry of triumph. _

_Sliding his hands into his pockets, Luke simply stood and watched in silence as she worked her way slowly towards the woods, cutting down those dandelions she could not tear up, her eyes gleaming at each new kill, her entire form glowing with a kind of ridiculous purpose, a careless, laughing beauty that wore away the sharp edges of his scowl, unknowingly drawing the corners of his mouth up into a small smile. She was glorious, she was incredible, she was breathtaking. She was in her element – that is, the completely pointless and insane._

_She had already decimated several clumps of dandelions that resembled galaxies of suns, and was struggling with a many-flowered weed, yanking fruitlessly at its long stem, before he found reason to speak._

"_What on earth are you doing?" he asked skeptically, with raised eyebrows. "I never knew you were much a gardening person."_

"_I'm not," she panted, finally giving up on the resistant dandelion and flopping back on the grass so that she was looking up at him, a few stray golden petals gleaming in her hair. "It's just these stupid dandelions. Aren't they weeds? Rory always said they were weeds, and that I should get rid of them. So now I am."_

"_Uh-huh." Luke sank down to the ground beside her; it didn't feel right somehow, towering over her like that. It didn't feel right to look down at Lorelai; it was more natural to be looking up at her, to be admiring, serving, loving her. "Except I happen to know that Rory is in Hartford this weekend for one of Lane's band's secret gigs, and that she loves flowers, so she wouldn't want you to kill them, and I know that you can't just be looking for something to do, because if you are –" he pointed at the house looming above them " – that house is filled with more projects than Wonder Woman would be able to complete in a lifetime, and just about all of them are more productive than this."_

"_Luke Danes!" she gasped in mock indignation. "Are you accusing me of being productive?"_

_"No, I am accusing you of ransacking Bert and stealing my wire-clippers to cut down helpless flowers for no good reason."_

_"Reason, shmeason. I haven't given a good reason for anything I've done in years," she said airily, propping herself up on her elbows. "You of all people should know that, Mr. Give-Lorelai-Coffee-And-Hope-That-She'll-Shut-Up." She regarded him curiously. "Why do you want to know what I'm doing, anyway?"_

"_I've already told you why. You stole my tools," he growled._

_"What, and you're one of those guys whose toolbox is his entire life? You need to get yourself a girlfriend. Poor Lonely Luke, turning to his tools for comfort and support," she languished in mock agony, then perked up immediately as another thought occurred to her. "Good thing we already named it for you, huh?"_

_Luke let out a forceful sigh, rubbing his eyes in a clear gesture that he did not want to deal with Lorelai's ramblings. "Look, just tell me what you have against dandelions, okay? Then I promise I'll leave. I'll even let Bert stay here to keep you company if you want."_

_"No, stay," she whined, reaching out to tug at his sleeve. "Bert wants you here, he gets separation anxiety if he's left alone."_

_Luke only raised an eyebrow, his eyes fixed to hers in a patient, long-suffering stare, arms crossed over his chest, making it plain that neither jokes nor tears would move him until his question had been answered._

_There was a moment of silence, as the atmosphere of ridiculous gaiety and summer sunsets vanished, the air between them vibrating with a sudden tension that shuddered, almost causing the air to shimmer with its brief intensity. Finally, Lorelai broke it; she looked away, letting herself fall back onto the cushion of overgrown grass, putting her hands behind her head, staring meditatively upwards at the clouds that had been painted crimson by the fading light. "Alex and I aren't together anymore," she said simply, calmly, as though it had merely been an observation about the flaming sky._

_Luke started as though jolted by an electric shock, his mind immediately snapped from skepticism into fear; his vision seemed to sharpen, and he looked down at Lorelai's prone form, scrutinizing every line of her face, every inch of her body for hidden tension, repressed pain, unshed tears that she refused to let him see. There was nothing; she seemed perfectly relaxed, perfectly at ease._

_"So you're taking it out on the dandelions?" he asked gruffly, realizing that if she herself had just gotten over the split, his making it into a huge issue would probably not be appreciated. Instead he turned away, trying and failing to hide the look of fearful concern on his face, disguising the sudden tension of his movements in a search among the grass for the lost wire clippers. _

_"Remember that stupid fishing trip he took me on?" she asked dreamily, now gazing rapturously at the sky, though whether it was because of the fiery streaks of sunset or her own memories, Luke couldn't tell. "Well, the river we went to ran through this huge field of dandelions, and he gave me a bouquet of them." her voice had become soft, lilting, her words slurring together into the tones of dreams. "We threw them into the water and watched them run downstream. I remember thinking – I remember thinking that they looked like teardrops of the sun."_

_Luke was frozen, holding his breath to catch each cloud-enamored word, doubled over with both hands planted in the rich earth, wavering weeds scratching at his exposed skin, dandelions sprouting from between his fingers. "Beautiful." he whispered, an involuntary breath._

_"Thanks," she replied absently, her voice ringing a little stronger, drawing back down to earth a little more with each word. "I have some poetic moments. It's part of my overall brilliance." _

_She did not notice that Luke was staring, eyes wide, at the dreamy, utterly content smile on her face._

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My only comment for the end of this chapter is to beg, plead, implore you on my knees to leave a review. This is a five-story chapter, with an average of three reviews per chapter; and I worked insanely for over a month tweaking and retweaking this story, so the lack of response is extremely depressing and I'm losing faith in my own ability to weave a plotline. There are many, many people who read this story, and just one word from you can make my week! Please, take pity on an impoverished writer who has nothing better to do with her life than sit around watching old Gilmore Girl episodes on DVD!

Rant over now. Thank you for listening. Tune in next week for another random discourse by Ophelia's Flood!


	6. Luke

Bonjour, mon amis! Je suis tres enthousiate to bring you this week's installment in 'Of Sunflowers Lost'! To those of you who can read French, I apologize; I ran out of words after 'enthousiaste'. To those of you who can't the above says "Hello, my friends! I am very enthusiastic….." and then starts in English again. I have been learning French for exactly two weeks, and I'm lovin' every minute of it!

The fictional flashbacks in this chapter take place a few minutes apart, in season 5. I probably have Rory's age wrong, but I don't really care because I'm a fanfic writer and I can do whatever I want! Which is true in very few areas of my life, which is probably why I love writing these stories so much. Go figure. Anyhoo, bon appetite!

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The air was split by a sudden crash.

Luke jumped, startled at the thunderous sound, jerking backwards away from the memories laid out on the dresser, cursing as his elbow smashed against the wall. Rubbing at the injured spot with one hand, he gritted his teeth, sudden overcome by a pointless, senseless, unreasoning rage; smashing his arm down on the dresser, he jerked his hand violently across, throwing the ancient dandelion to the floor, pushing the little perfume bottle to skitter away across the wood, and leaving the picture to tumble lazily down to the floor like an autumn leaf caught in the throes of dying. Snarling under his breath, he lurched backwards, away into the open, cavernous darkness of the apartment, the void made cold by rain-sweetened wind seeping in between the window and the wall.

Standing there, panting with an inexplicable fury, Luke was suddenly overcome by the sheer vastness of the world around him; the bedframe that he could feel scraping his leg was suddenly and simultaneously millions of miles away, separated by the gulf of sorrow, of knowledge and agony that could never be shared with the unfeeling wood. Suddenly the ceiling seemed to arch above him like the untouchable heavens; the walls were gone, vanished, no longer imposing the comforting boundaries of reality on the world around him, and Luke stood huddled in frigid darkness, alone, shivering, struck by the unthinkable sense of how very, very _small_ he was.

_Nothing. _Nothing surrounded him, enfolded him, drowned him; the sharp, bitter taste of emptiness stole down his throat with his every inhaled breath and settled into his lungs, seeping into his blood and distilling itself in his heart. He was suddenly cold, torn from his memories, and plunged back into the icy torrent of reality, his past torn from its moorings and cast away into the chasm of uncertainty. And he seized by the conviction, by the certainty that his life, his love with Lorelai had been a dream, a heartsick fantasy, that something so flawless, so insanely comfortable and perfect could never truly exist. It had been a dream conjured from nights of fevered nightmares, of tossing and turning with a throbbing ache in his chest as he thought of her.

As the thought occurred to him, his fear reversed itself; the walls that had seemed to be millions of eons away were now close, too close, growing towards each other and shoving him into a smaller and smaller space until he couldn't move and he couldn't think and he couldn't breathe.

Panic swelled up and crested over, broke on his mind with a sudden ferocity, and Luke gasped for air, panted for breath, desperate to be out in the open away from the claustrophobic cloud of memories. He did the only think he could think of – he bolted for the door, nearly flew down the stairs, not stopping his crazy forward momentum until he came skidding out around the counter of the empty diner. There he stopped, breathing heavily, staring out at the dark blue room, unlit, tainted by the rain; he stood staring at the empty tables, at the expanse of open air that seemed so much wider than he remembered it, at the blank faces of the buildings across the street, and slowly he regained his breath.

One hand rested on the counter that had been burnished until it gleamed, the other was braced on his knees as he breathed slowly, deeply, calming himself with the steady thunder of the rain and the soothing blue of the sodden sky. Standing there, amid the scenery that shaped his life day after day, amid the world washed clean by the storm until even memories no longer clouded the air, Luke dared to be still, to be silent, to search inside of himself for the cause of his sudden, unreasoning fear.

The sensations of falling flower petals returned again to his mind, and he felt a sudden chill wash over him. He knew why he had been afraid. He knew why reminiscing had made him feel worthless, insignificant, and small.

He loved Lorelai. That was truth. He had always loved her; for nine long years he had loved her; and he was utterly certain that he would love her as long as he had breath. And he knew that he had never loved another woman – neither Nicole, nor Rachel, nor anyone else – as much as he loved Lorelai.

He was afraid that the same was not true for her.

_Max_. She had loved Max, hadn't she? Loved him with a passion. Almost been _married_ to him, for heaven's sake. She had risked public humiliation, risked making a tramp of herself in her daughter's school, lost her senses enough to risk Rory's peace of mind because of her love for Max. And Luke knew, knew that only the extremities of passion or of madness would derange Lorelai enough to unsettle Rory. And Christopher – she had loved Christopher deeply, unconsciously, for at least sixteen years after she had first fallen in love with him, had broken short the engagement with Max, had broken Christopher's own engagement because she had not been able to let him go. And if those men, whom she had loved so intimately, so devotedly, if they had passed out of her life completely – if they had been cast away and never seen her again – then how long could Luke, the simple coffee supplier, ever hope to keep her happy?

He did not blame Lorelai. Others around the town called her flighty, faithless; such accusations only made Luke's blood boil, made him grit his teeth in anger and bite his tongue to keep from bursting out in rage. No, the problem did not lay with Lorelai; Lorelai was incredible, breathtaking, radiant in a way that blazingly outshone the mere mortals all around her. How could any man hope to be worthy of her for any amount of time?

Luke staggered as though struck a physical blow, leaning back against the counter for support, letting himself fall into the nearest chair, breathing fast and hard. He had been without her once, he had already broken up with her and that had been hell. He could not, _would_ not go through that again!

And there was so much against them. So very many things, so many cruel tricks of fate waiting eagerly to tear them apart. He felt as though he was balanced precariously on the brink of grief, wavering on the edge of an infinite chasm, simply waiting for a harsh word from Emily or a reappearance of Christopher to send him toppling into the darkness that had been his life without her.

It was all too much, too much – especially today, on the anniversary of the greatest loss he had ever suffered, it was too much to be thinking about a loss that might be even greater. He was trembling and cold and sick to his stomach, and he could not take it anymore –

His head jerked up, and he looked around, wild-eyed, as though he could _see_ Fate waiting nearby to tear Lorelai away from him. His desperate gaze swept the room, taking in the empty diner, the counter, the dark doorways and the rain beyond, finally coming to rest on a vase of flowers, his only modest decoration, standing half-hidden in a corner, below a riot of sunflowers that rustled in the afternoon's cold breeze.

The dropping flowers caught his gaze, captivated him as nothing else could have at that moment. He stared, enraptured, remembering involuntarily how intimately those flowers had become bound up with his life; how they had stood resplendent on a specially decorated table for Rory's sixteenth birthday, how they had gleamed all over the Gilmore house whenever he visited.

The familiar sight calmed his panic, restored the sense of peace that came from resolved memories. Today it seemed as though the very air was charged with past moments; Luke relaxed back against the counter, closing his eyes, watching the bright afterimage of golden petals that had been seared into his mind.

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_The door opened with a jangle of bells, admitting a gust of wind that pushed two young women before it, seeming to propel them with unnatural speed directly through the bustle of the lunch rush and straight to the counter. Prattling at a speed almost unintelligible to the human ear, Rory and Lane charmed their way into two seats at the crowded counter, with a series of gestures and signals that Luke despaired of ever beginning to understand. But that was not enough. They had managed to seat themselves at opposite ends of the counter; yet their conversation continued, shouted across the heads of those in between, until the people separating them simply gave up and moved to different seats, until the two college girls were the only ones, and sitting right next to each other._

_Luke shook his head, leaning on the counter, pen and notepad in hand as he shouted a greeting over the rumbling noise of a hundred conversations. "Hey, Rory, it's good to have you home!" he called gruffly. "When'd you get in?"_

_"Last night. We were gonna come here for dinner, but they were doing something really gross on Fear Factor, and you know how much we love bad reality TV, so we just had leftovers instead." She elbowed her friend, who squealed and smacked her on the shoulder. "Lane is being uncooperative, so I'll ask you. What's going on in Star's Hollow?"_

_"Hmm." Luke paused to think for a moment, straightening up to watch Kirk and Lulu toss silverware at each other across the diner. "Nothing, really. I mean, nothing huge that I've heard of. But then, your mother says that I live in cave, so I'm not really the one to ask."_

"_See? I'm not being uncooperative! There really is nothing going on!" Lane said indignantly. _

_"Huh. I don't believe it. There's always something going on here. You mean Taylor hasn't come up with any more crazy ideas? Kirk hasn't bungled one of his jobs or scared away any tourists? I'm traumatized."_

_"Hey, the crazy need some time off too," Luke replied. "So, how're you doing in school? Still the smartest one in all your classes?"_

"_No," Rory began, but Lane cut her off._

"_Yes," the Korean girl said proudly. "Still straight A's, but then, that's our Rory."_

_"That's our Rory," Luke agreed. "Say, isn't your birthday coming up? Turning twenty-one, huh? That's a big deal."_

_"I guess," Rory said indifferently, trying and failing to hide the eager smile on her face. "Apparently there's some secret party in the works that I'm not supposed to have found out about yet. But what good is a surprise party if it's actually a surprise?"_

_"Right. Because that would entirely defeat the purpose," he answered sarcastically. Suddenly becoming extremely interested in his pencil point, he asked shyly "Did you get the – ah – package that I sent you?"_

_"No. What package was that?" Luke ducked his head and made a furtive movement as though trying to escape to the back, but Rory stopped him. "Come on, Luke, cough it up. What did you send me?"_

_"Well, I didn't know your address, so I sent it to your mom. She was supposed to send it to you. I don't know, maybe she's waiting for your birthday or something."_

_"What was it?" Luke only shook his head, but Rory put on her best begging face, raising her voice to a pathetic whine. "Come on, Luke, you can't tell me you sent me a present and then not tell me what it is!"_

"_Yeah," Lane chimed in, "Surprise presents are even worse than surprise parties."_

_"Don't get all excited, it's no big deal," Luke growled, staring with interest at his shoes. "I just sent you a bunch of sunflowers to put in your dorm, that's all."_

_"Aw, you sent me flowers?" Rory crooned. "Luke, you big old softie! Did mom put you up to this? Because I swear, the Luke I remember would never send a lady flowers, even for her birthday!"_

_"It's no big deal," he growled, ducking his head against the relentless stream of teasing. "I remembered you liked sunflowers, and I saw some in a window the other day so I thought I'd send you a few. It must've gotten lost in the mail or something, though. I'll check with your mom, and see if she shipped them right. In the meantime –" he picked up the two coffee cups he always had on hand in case of an unexpected Gilmore visit, "—I expect you'll be wanting coffee?"_

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Luke felt his frantic heartbeat begin to slow, his fast breath returning to normal. He allowed a slight smile to emerge on his face, remembering the grin that Rory had given him – the panic slowed somewhat from the memory. He knew that even if Lorelai's family managed to tear the two of them apart, he would never be completely cut off from Lorelai's life. Rory would not allow it. The town would not allow it. Their friendship was too much a part of Star's Hollow to be allowed to die. And he knew that Rory was fond of him as well; that was his saving grace, for he knew that Lorelai would rather throw herself off a random cliff than cause a rift in Rory's life.

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_Luke stood against the door that led to the storeroom in the back of the Diner, staring absently through the doorframe that led to the bustling restaurant, lost in thought as his eyes settled on Rory and Lane, giggling and poking each other with French fries at the counter. Caesar shoved past him periodically, moving productively around the kitchen, elbowing Luke in the shoulder not quite hard enough to wake him from his dreaming._

_The bright clangor of a bell pierced the rumble and noise, rousing Luke somewhat back to reality; Caesar helped him along with a shove, expelling the diner owner from the kitchen. "Your job is out there," he grunted, before turning back to the sizzling stove._

_Luke leaned one elbow on the counter, watching as Lorelai elbowed her way through the crowd, using handbag and heels to clear a path for herself through the bustle and up to the counter, where she fell into the seat next to her daughter, feigning exhaustion._

_"Hey, mom, Lane and I were going to go next door and aggravate Taylor so his face gets all red and he stops making sense. Wanna come?"_

_"Maybe later, hon – and when did Taylor start making sense?" She swung her purse up onto the counter and leaned forward across it, making ridiculous doe eyes at Luke. "Right now I have to try and seduce this gorgeous man so I can raid his coffee stores."_

_"No need to seduce me," he replied, reaching behind him for the coffeepot without turning away. "Just wear one of those little black dresses in here every day and you'll get more coffee than even you can drink." Under the pretense of filling her cup, he leaned across the counter and gave her a quick kiss. "Good morning, crazy lady."_

_"If you two are going to start making out again, I'm gone," Rory moaned. "I'm sure I'm going to see plenty more of that over the rest of my break, so I'm going to go distract myself with something interesting. Come on, Lane." Shoving Luke away long enough to give her mother a quick peck on the cheek, Rory disappeared, leaving Luke and Lorelai alone._

_"She's only delaying the inevitable," Lorelai commented as she watched her daughter walk laughing away across the square. "Sooner or later she's going to have to learn that watching other people make out is a part of life. She's going to have to get used to it."_

"_Just don't teach her to yell out commentary as she's getting used to it," Luke grumbled._

_"Excuse me! I only did that once! And Kirk really needed the help! Who knew that a grown man would be that pathetic a kisser?"_

_"Kirk has a very low self-esteem," Luke growled. "Not only did you make him cry, you made him huddle up in his house for a week, which means he wasn't coming here."_

"_I thought you didn't like Kirk."_

"_I don't like Kirk. But Kirk has money, and he is a paying customer, which almost makes me able to overlook the weirdness. Some people, however, just take what they want and run."_

"_Burglars?" Lorelai asked innocently._

"_Yes, and annoying girlfriends."_

_"Hey, do you think Geico offers the same deal on coffee that they do on car insurance? Cause that gecko looks like he could use some lovin'."_

_Luke shook his head. "I'm going to completely ignore that statement. And in an effort to end this unusually pointless conversation, I am going to ask you a question. Did you send Rory her birthday present?"_

_"What birthday present?" Lorelai asked. "I didn't know you already sent her something. In fact, I was going to ask you to chip in when I hire the clown for the party."_

_"I didn't already send her something, I sent you something that you were supposed to send to her. I don't know her address, remember?"_

_"Hmm, let's see, present for Rory, present for Rory. Nope, drawing a blank," she said cheerfully, downing most of her coffee in one gulp. _

_"I sent her a bouquet of sunflowers. Didn't you get it?" Lorelai's smile suddenly turned from her patented I'm-annoying-Luke-and-loving-every-minute-of-it grin to a cringing, apologetic expression, a guilty face. "Lorelai….."_

_"I didn't know they were for Rory," she whined. "I put them in a vase in the kitchen. They were so pretty….."_

_"So she's already seen them. Wonderful," Luke grumbled, refilling her coffee cup out of habit. "I don't suppose you could take them out of the vase and mail them?"_

_"Nooo….." she said hesitantly. With a sigh of frustration, Luke set the coffeepot down, planting both hands on the counter and staring determinedly into her eyes. After a few seconds, she crumpled. "They're…. not with us anymore," she admitted. When this was met with a stony stare, she sighed. "In fact, they're dead," she murmured; then hurriedly continued, with a placating grin, "But my love for_ you_ will never die!"_

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Luke reached up and plucked as single limp flower from the vase, holding it close to his chin, letting the rain-sweetened fragrance engulf him. He remembered the vow, spoken as a joke by day, but pronounced with all seriousness at night, when they lay together in each other's arms. He remembered Rory's smile, her affectionate words, her approval. And he relaxed, all fear gone, the hollow cavity inside him filled with the comforting warmth of love. This was going to work.

A rare smile on his face, he stood up from the counter, a warm golden light chasing all cold thoughts from his mind. He strode across the Diner in three powerful steps, grabbed his coat from where it hung by the door, and disappeared out into the rain, the lone sunflower still clutched in his hand.

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Guess where Luke's going? I can't tell you…… thanks again to all my luverly reviewers! More reviews gets next chapter posted faster! Oh, and now for a bit of self-advertising; I will shortly be coming out with a new oneshot, as yet untitled, but let me leave you with this tantalizing tidbit; Rachel and Nicole find some peace, Lorelai is forever banned from a secret society, and I get to use the phrase 'Little did Luke know….' which I think we all can agree is a very fun phrase.


	7. Lorelai

One kind reviewer pointed out to me last chapter that this fic takes place on November thirty-first, but that November has only thirty days. To those of you who care, I crave your indulgence; but I beg you to deal with it. After all, this is a fictional story concerned with fictional characters with fictional relationships taking place in a fictional town. Why can't it happen on a fictional day?

On that pleasant note, I bring you the final installment in the 'Sunflowers' saga! Leave a review, and make a poor pathetic writer very happy!

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The Gilmore house stood dark and quiet, slumbering under the rain-washed sky, illuminated only the faint moonlight that seeped through the clouds. Moving slowly, like a lumbering animal with eyes that blazed in the darkness, an old Jeep crawled up the driveway, coughed once, and died; the door creaked open, spewing out a breath of stale carborator air and a woman who stumbled, yanked her heels out of the thick mud, and staggered across the lawn, her arms weighted down with bags.

Muttering incoherently to herself, Lorelai Gilmore stumbled up onto the porch, fishing with her foot amid the several ceramic animals that clustered around the front door, finally finding the turtle. She slid her foot underneath it, balancing its shell on her toes, until she had lifted it high enough to retrieve the glistening key from its mouth. Panting, she shifted most of the miscellaneous junk she was carrying to her left hand, using her right to jimmy the key into the doorknob until the door swung inwards. After examining the door and her own load, and realizing that the second would not successfully be able to navigate the first, she dropped one of her bags to the ground, hooking one foot through the handles, dragging it along after her as she managed to heave herself inside.

She was able to struggle through the door; but as she made ready to move into the foyer, the bag she was dragging caught on the threshold, tumbling her to the floor, spilling lipstick containers and earrings all over the living room floor.

"Rory!" she called, gathering up those casualties she could reach. "Rory, why'd you have to go off to college? Come back and help mommy or you don't get any lip gloss for a month!" She waited for this to have some kind of effect, for the sky to rip open perhaps, and disgorge Super Rory, able to try on clothes faster than anyone alive, with powers that could summon earrings from the farthest corners of the earth. When no such creature appeared, she was forced to worm herself free of the many bags that clung to her, kicking off her heels before rising unsteadily to her feet.

Free at last, she looked down at the mess she had made of her hallway, and made a face at it as though the lipstick had a collective mind of its own. She suddenly (and unsurprisingly) didn't feel like dealing with it; she swept the bags inside enough to close the door, and walked away, leaving a single tote bag sitting lonely on the porch.

"Her Gilmore-senses should be tingling any time now," Lorelai muttered, walking through the archway towards the kitchen. "Maybe if I de-alphabetize her books, that would bring her running." She stuck her head into Rory's empty room, muttering threats at the dictionary on the dresser. "How would you like that, huh? I'd put Poe before Orwell! That way you'd look for 'The Raven', and get that book about the pigs instead! And pigs aren't anything like ravens, so you'd cry and cry and cry…"

Satisfied that the dictionary was cowering in fear of her, Lorelai turned around – and her hand flew to her heart as she caught sight of the man sitting in the kitchen that she had expected to be empty.

"Luke!" she gasped in relief. "You scared me! What are you doing here?" She paused, glancing over at the calendar hanging limply from the fridge. "Today is –"

"I know what today is," He said slowly, calming her racing questions. She fell silent, watching him with her head cocked slightly to one side, eyes bright with curiosity and concern. The silence stretched between them; he observing, she waiting, fidgeting, tense under his complacent gaze.

Finally she could stand it no more. "What's wrong?" she burst out, with a need for sound that was almost childlike. "Do you need to talk? I mean, I wasn't expecting to see you today….."

He rose from where he had been sitting at the kitchen table, still in his coat, raindrops glimmering down the creases in his shoulders. "I wasn't expecting to see you today either," he replied softly. She opened her mouth to form a question, but he raised a hand to cut her off. "But I did see you. Everywhere I looked." She reminded him forcefully of a bird, rocking back and forth on her heels, in constant motion, as though dying to fly away.

"I usually go and visit my dad's grave every year, today," he began. "But today, for some reason…. I couldn't. Or I didn't want to. I don't know." He shrugged, becoming restless himself with the force of confession. "I felt like there was something – holding me here, something that kept me from leaving because I felt kind of afraid that things would be – different when I got back." He looked up at her, shuffling his feet like a little boy who was embarrassed at a tale he was telling. "Do you understand?"

She only nodded slightly, but that was enough. "So I just stayed in my apartment today," he continued, nervously. "And I was angry – angry at myself for not going, angry at the town for not letting me. So I was pacing around, looking at stuff, pulling out old junk that I hadn't had the heart to throw away. And I realized that the something was different, something is here today that wasn't here a year ago, and that something was keeping me from leaving Star's Hollow." He paused, taking in a deep breath that seemed to calm his nerves, his eyes never leaving her face. "You."

She started, opening her mouth to defend herself, to comfort him, which one he didn't know. But before she could he was speaking again, his even, measured voice never permitting her to burst out like she so obviously wanted to. "I realized that the thing I was afraid of was that you wouldn't love me when I came back. I was afraid that these past few weeks have been a dream, and that leaving the town would wake me up somehow, would force me out into the world and never let me come back." He breathed in deeply, waiting for her to explode in mindless chatter, or for her to say something profound and quieting, to surprise him with one of the amazing insights he knew she was capable of. But she stayed silent, waiting for him to continue.

"There's a lot against us, Lorelai," he breathed out, forcefully. "There are a lot of people who would like nothing more than to see us apart. Your parents, Christopher, Taylor with his stupid charts –" she allowed herself a small smile, and he crossed the space between them, taking her hands in his, staring deeply into her eyes. "I was afraid that they would tear us apart, and I knew that I couldn't live without you. But now I know they won't. Because I won't let them." He leaned down and kissed her, a brief but lingering kiss that left the two of them reeling, leaning against the kitchen wall. "I love you, Lorelai Gilmore," he murmured, releasing her hands and wrapping his arms around her, holding her to him tightly. "I don't say it enough, I couldn't possibly say it enough, because I won't live long enough to say it as many times as I should. I love you, Lorelai Gilmore, and I always will."

He kissed her again, deep and soulfully this time, silencing the echo she had been about to voice. Her answer died in her throat, and she put all of her love and devotion into the kiss instead, so intent on the feeling of him pressed against her that she didn't notice the slender stem that he pressed into her hand.

"Good-bye," he whispered, breaking the kiss at last, letting his forehead rest against hers for a moment before pulling away and slipping out the back door. Her head spinning from his farewell, thought clouded by the force of his passion, she only managed to stagger over to a chair before her legs gave out completely. Leaning her head on her hand, she felt something graze her lips; looking down at her hand, she saw a single sunflower sprouting between her fingers, gleaming with all of the warmth and love that she felt in that moment. And she knew, with a sudden, senseless certainty, that sunflowers would never vanish from her life; because they had become eternally bound up with Luke in her mind and in heart, and she would love Luke forever.

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The End!

P.S. I've seen the panic that's been on the web lately about Luke's possible illegitimate daughter, but I'm an episode behind and I don't know what's going on. Would someone fill me in? What's the panic? What happened? Would ASP dare to turn Gilmore Girls into a soap opera on us? Tell me, please!


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